


Blind

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-11 00:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16464866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Mr. Lupin sustained a severe injury to his eyes last night. He’ll live, thankfully. Miss MacDonald and found him in time to keep him from bleeding out and to fix any nerve damage that could affect brain function. But he’ll lose his eyesight."





	Blind

**Author's Note:**

> I am more than well aware of how overused this au is, but I wrote it as a writing challenge with a friend and I thought it was nice! I tried not to make it too cliche, but it's still pretty bad lmao

“Fuck, Moony, I came as soon as I heard and-” 

Sirius stopped in his tracks. He had heard from Marlene McKinnon who heard from Lily who’d heard from Mary MacDonald that Remus was in the hospital wing again, but this time it was bad. He wasn’t too sure what even qualified as bad with them anymore, but there was no way he could have prepared himself for the scene that lay out before him.

Remus was in his usual bed, right in the corner of the room so that other students who frequented wouldn’t catch on to his monthly secret. But this time, the claw marks that normally scattered themselves across his chest and back found a new target: his face. They slashed across his eyes, still swollen and tender but no longer bleeding as Sirius was sure they had been a few hours earlier. He turned frantically to Madame Pomfrey, eyes wild with fear. 

“Wha-what happened?” Sirius choked out. For the first time in his life, words failed him.

Madame Pomfrey avoided his tormented gaze. She’d been dreading the day something like this would happen ever since she’d been burdened with the task of caring for Remus Lupin; the day she’d have to face that there were some injuries she couldn’t cure. And she never wanted to see the day where she let down the three boys that spent just as much time in the hospital with the werewolf for no reason other than “he’s our friend, we have to.” She blinked back the tears and and turned back to Sirius, attempting to maintain a composed front. 

“Mr. Lupin sustained a severe injury to his eyes last night. He’ll live, thankfully. Miss MacDonald and found him in time to keep him from bleeding out and to fix any nerve damage that could affect brain function. But he’ll lose his eyesight, most likely permanently.” She took a moment to sigh, cursing the limits of magical medicine. “If we try to fix it, we run the risk of paralyzing him.” 

Sirius’s world came crashing down on him. He couldn’t even fathom not being able to see, not being able to cry along to Lily’s bittersweet Muggle romance movies, or comment on James’s spectacular flying in the bright, welcoming light of the Quidditch pitch, or pour himself over the colourful pages of the newest monthly edition of Batman comics with Peter, or watch the way the sunlight glinted off of Remus’s golden-brown hair when they spent afternoons studying outside instead of in the crowded library. And he certainly couldn’t imagine Remus having to go through those things. He already had to deal with turning into a self-destructive monster every full moon, couldn’t the universe just give Remus a break? Sirius figured that, out of the four of them, he deserved it the most. He pleaded to whichever god was listening that this was all just some hellish nightmare. It bloody felt like one, anyway. He took in a shaky breath, deciding that he had to be strong, because, fuck, Remus deserved for someone to be there, at the very least. 

So he sat. And he waited. 

(Seven Months Later) 

By this point, Sirius had lost count of the weeks. He was there when Remus woke up in the hospital wing, wondering why it was so dark even though he could hear lunch being held in the Great Hall. He watched Remus’s face fall when Madame Pomfrey delivered the news, not in shock or sadness but in resignation. The hardest part for Sirius was to watch Remus fade into a ghost barely ressemblant of his former self. His sunshine smiles became fewer and farther between until Sirius couldn’t remember what they looked like. Remus stopped laughing and joking, and eventually speaking altogether. And, fuck, did it hurt. Sirius hated himself for letting it hurt because he knew that it was unimaginably worse for his best friend. But when it was past curfew on nights so dark it was like the moon was hiding in shame, he indulged himself in his selfish pain. He let his now-malnourished body be wracked by immeasurable sobs, going through packs of cigarettes like changing clothes. He started to roll down the sleeves of his robes because he no longer cared when the embers fell onto his arms; in fact he relished it, and began pushing the red-hot end into the pale skin of his wrist as a way to punish himself for even feeling like he deserved to be upset. 

What hurt most was watching his other friends feel the same pain. James was trying his best to be supportive, but Sirius could hear his voice choke in guilt whenever he tried to crack the same lighthearted jokes that used to flow like water before the accident. Peter, too, couldn’t hide it, although he did a better job than James. He tried to get Remus to smile with his atrocious impressions of Freddie Mercury and baking batch after batch of decadent chocolate cakes. Lily became far more motherly, as if Remus could shatter like glass at any given moment. As for the rest of Gryffindor tower, they grieved as well, but the old Remus soon faded from their memories and they could hardly remember what this shell of a boy even was. 

Sirius took it upon himself to maintain normalcy in Remus’s life, because he knew that’s what Remus would have wanted. He kept their usual schedule, walking with him from meals to classes to studying and back to their dorms. Every day, he put on a brave face for his best friend and he smiled over his agony. His only comfort was that Remus couldn’t see how thin his facade was, worn down after months of worry, and he wouldn’t say anything if he did. 

On yet another one of these listless days where Sirius forces himself to go through the motions like nothing had changed (he could hardly remember what things were like before anymore), he led Remus down to the trees by the lake where they used to go to simply sit in the shade and skip rocks while enjoying the pleasant company. They took their seats, Remus on the left and Sirius on the right; a half-assed attempt to fix the severed bonds that snapped when Remus lost his vision and Sirius lost his closest companion. Finally, Sirius decided to speak, just to fill the maddening silence. 

“It’s beautiful out here, you know. Hasn’t changed a bit.” 

He stopped expecting a response long ago, knowing that Remus didn’t have the energy (or will) to speak anymore. But today felt different, and when Sirius turned over to look at the broken boy, he was opening his mouth to do just that.

“Tell me what it looks like.” The voice was barely above a whisper and raspy with disuse, but the sound of it was enough to make Sirius crack into a mile-wide grin and grip his hand.

“The sky’s pink, like the color Narcissa’s hair was for a month when Marlene hexed her in fourth year. Do you remember that? They started dating last week, by the way. I always figured it would happen, you know. Oh, and it’s also pink like that coral necklace James bought for Lily in Hogsmeade last September. It feels like a Queen song, like maybe Father to Son. Or maybe like Lazarus by David Bowie. I remember you like him better. The lake is magnificent; it’s like the color of crisp Ravenclaw Quidditch robes. And the sun is reflecting off of it like syrup dripping off of the treacle tarts that James eats by the dozen…” 

 

Sirius trailed off. He became aware that during his ramble, he and Remus have managed to tangle their limbs together in a manner strongly reminiscent of the post-Quidditch parties James used to host in the Gryffindor tower after every game against Slytherin. The Firewhiskey always managed to shatter some invisible boundary between them, one that they had without question crossed again. And, fuck, Sirius realized that this was something he had craved for, longed for, even, for years. He looks up at Remus, the boy who was everything Sirius ever wanted, with all his amorous proclamations hanging on his lips, but Remus gets there first.

“I love you.”

“Oh, Moony,” Sirius smiles, the old nickname naturally falling into place like it always had. “I always have.”


End file.
